UTMB Workgroup on Social Media Strategy & Evolution

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Social Media Blog

Have a professional interest in social media (or marketing or web development or business or communication or…)? There’s an article you need to read. Wired recently posted a piece by Davey Alba about Facebook. It speaks to topics that help justify/validate why so much of our social strategy at UTMB focuses on Facebook, and why a lot of our digital work centers on mobile. There’s too much great information in the article to try and summarize.Please take a look.

Have you noticed that your Facebook page looks different? If it doesn’t yet, it probably will soon.
You may need to do some reformatting as the profile photo is no longer at the bottom left of the cover banner image. Also, the name of your page is no longer superimposed over the cover image. So, the profile photo will no longer cover up anything in the cover image, and the readability of the page name on top of an image will no longer be an issue – hooray! At least, not until Facebook changes its format again, which as one blogger writes, “Facebook changes happen more regularly than my teenager changes his socks… ” Her blog post has good information about these changes as does this video.
To change the order of appearance of the elements on your page, click on Manage Tabs under your profile image – drag to reorder and Save changes.

Last summer we worked with a team from Audit Services on a comprehensive review of our institutional social media program; we recapped it here. One of the needs identified in the plan was user training for people charged with administering institutionally branded social media sites. Today we’re pleased to be able to allow you to view that training, in a fairly concise and self-paced, PDF-based training module.

We plan to use this approximately 20-slide training module as the basis for additional training (including some in-person instruction) and brief, topic-specific modules. We’re really interested in your feedback and thoughts about this first public version. We anticipate that this training or something like it will be a prerequisite for those requesting and/or managing official UTMB social media sites going forward. We want to ensure that the training is useful, accessible and not overly burdensome.

Have you noticed a change in your Home timeline on Twitter? Now, top tweets of interest to you (determined by Twitter) appear at top of your timeline followed by real-time tweets of those you follow. Unlike Facebook, you still see all posts of everyone you follow in real time. Maybe a little algorithm is a good thing.

Unfortunately, there’s no perfect answer. Different businesses may find different days and times work best for them. In fact, timing often depends on the platform you’re using, how your target audience interacts with that platform, the region(s) you’re targeting, the content of your post (e.g. funny or serious), and your goals (e.g. clicks versus shares).

If you’ve been following our work, you know registration of new and exitsing UTMB social media sites was one of the recommendations that came out of an internal audit done in August of 2014 (summarized here).

The target was to have this component (registration mechanism for social sites and site owners) in place by Dec. 31, 2015. The form and process to register all UTMB-related social media sites are now ready: it’s online, simple and and convenient.

While we’re initially focusing on NEW site requests (we’ll direct any new queries down this path), users may also add their existing sites. (We’re focusing on new sites because many existing sites are already in our inventory, and with a little more development we may be able to save people a bit of additional effort.)

1) To request a new site (or register an existing one not in the inventory): [Visit this form]

The audit recommended that the Office of Marketing and Communications “develop formal guidelines and best practices to support social media strategy and policy including, but not limited to, terms of use, legal disclaimers, program ownership, monitoring, site/account approval and administration, and site administrator training.”

For more information regarding the social media audit and UTMB’s social media strategy and guidelines read this blog. Send comments or ask questions at social@utmb.edu.

A new set of guidelines is being proposed to help manage the use of social media at UTMB. The guidelines seek to help formalize UTMB’s social media programs, provide additional oversight, standards and resources including training.

The guidelines—which align with practices in use at similar organizations—build on existing policies, will require site registration, and offer publishers much more detail about setting up and maintaining an effective social presence. The document grew from recommendations made in a social media audit conducted in 2014. The audit called for the Office of Marketing and Communications to “develop formal guidelines and best practices to support social media strategy and policy including, but not limited to, terms of use, legal disclaimers, program ownership, monitoring, site/account approval and administration, and site administrator training.”

Last summer, a team from across the institution worked on a comprehensive review of UTMB’s social media program, looking for best practices, gaps and opportunities. Based on recommendations from the audit, a risk assessment was completed earlier this year. Additional work is planned through 2016, which will include updates to UTMB’s policies, the development of social media training, and new requirements related to site registration.

Late last year, we worked with a team from Audit Services on a comprehensive review of our institutional social media program, looking for best practices, gaps, opportunities. The report was shared with executive leadership and many key stakeholders, and since then we’ve been moving ahead with development and implementation. The project shares many similarities and in many places intersects with our transformative “Web Reboot” project.

There were are a few common themes in our audit recommendations, largely centered on formalization of the program, providing additional oversight, creating more standards and policies governing use, and offering more training and additional monitoring. Here’s what it said:

1) The Office of Marketing and Communications, working with the Office of Information Security (OIA), should conduct a risk assessment of institutionally branded social media sites. This assessment process should include identifying and evaluating associated risks and developing an action plan to mitigate those risks. (This has been completed.)

2) Using the DIR Social Media Resource Guide core elements as guidance, the Office of Marketing and Communications should develop a formal strategy for UTMB Health’s social media program. Once the formal strategy is developed, the social media policy should be aligned and revised accordingly. (You can review a draft of the plan now.

3) The Office of Marketing and Communications should develop formal guidelines and best practices to support social media strategy and policy including, but not limited to, terms of use, legal disclaimers, program ownership, monitoring, site/account approval and administration, and site administrator training. (See current policy and disclaimer)

4) The Office of Marketing and Communications should require that institutionally branded social media sites be formally registered with UTMB Health. (Visit our site inventory tool, part of the Web Reboot project.)

5) The Office of Marketing and Communications should develop a formal strategy for monitoring social media to protect the institutional brand from negative publicity or adverse reputational issues. (We are monitoring, and are working to formalize and enhance the program to better serve our many UTMB customers. This is a major area of focus for us.)

6) The Office of Marketing and Communications should develop targeted training for individuals responsible for administering institutionally branded social media sites that detail proper procedures for managing these sites. Consideration should be given to this training being a prerequisite for site/account approval. (While the training programs are developed, we’ve been meeting with interested groups or individuals as requested. Contact us below for more information.)

Driving through Louisiana this weekend, I was having a conversation with my teenage son about potential careers and how things change. He’s an avid reader so we got on the topic of writing as a profession, and the many challenges and changes the field has undergone. Somewhere in there we talked about how we live at a time where there is more to read, material is easier to access , and more people are writing (present company included, no statement on quality). How all this content gets to audiences is very relevant to what we do as communicators and as readers.